(Temporary) cager's lament

...well, I have to use the car sometimes. Running my son down to Brighton today in the rain, to catch an early morning coach, complacently thinking it's the car dammit, nothing can go wrong...

...the exhaust fell off. Groping under the car in the pouring rain, managed to wrench the broken bit out and noisily finish the journey (he caught his bus OK). Now I have to learn how much an exhaust costs these days, hasn't happened to me for aeons, thought diesels were immune from this sort of thing were they? No Sir, evidence in the boot....

As I remarked to the wife later, you don't have exhaust problems on the bike. Just ease the old gluteus maximus off the Brooks Finest Leather, and .... aaaaahhhhh!!! there we go! Wife told me, don't be vulgar.

When I drove some crew up to Orkney a couple of years ago, the exhaust fell off our diesel LDV in Inverness. The previous year, it waited until Orkney to fall off. Anyway, the garage chap took off the offending part, wrapped it in a sheet and gave it to me, and we carried on, and it got replaced by an Orcadian farmer.

We were due to meet the dig director at the ferry, as he was driving up separately, and he said "How was your drive up?" and I said, "Well, the bad news is, the exhaust fell off, but the good news is, I've got the bit..."

The interesting bit was rigging up a temporary sling to hold the pipe up from dragging on the ground, using a bit of chain off someone's keyring, and some tinfoil from someone else's sandwiches, to get us into Inverness to meet someone from the train, and call the garage... It was certainly 10 out of 10 for ingenuity...

The interesting bit was rigging up a temporary sling to hold the pipe up from dragging on the ground, using a bit of chain off someone's keyring, and some tinfoil from someone else's sandwiches, to get us into Inverness to meet someone from the train, and call the garage... It was certainly 10 out of 10 for ingenuity...